


Say My Name

by lunasenzanotte



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Tragedy, Guilt, Historical, M/M, Murder, Reincarnation, Soulmates, Star-crossed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-21 04:29:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17636048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunasenzanotte/pseuds/lunasenzanotte
Summary: Murder is a grave sin. Murder of your soulmate is an unforgivable one.The first time Jordan meets his soulmate, he messes up and turns Fate against them. He spends all his next lives trying to fix his mistake, but Fate won't hear any of it.





	1. England, 1356

The first time Jordan meets Adam, he realizes the bond too late.

He enters the ship at the last moment as a member of crew suddenly disappears just before the ship sails from Liverpool. It’s not uncommon; the ports offer many opportunities to get drunk enough to either sleep for days or trip over something and die, and enough wenches in whose arms one could easily forget the day and the hour. Nobody asks Jordan anything but his experience, and he has plenty. The ships he had worked on didn’t have famous names, on the contrary, some of them were quite infamous, but nobody cares for names when they need to find a skilled sailor fast.

The cargo of the ship is nothing out of the ordinary, cloths and wool mainly, destined for the Baltic markets. There will be more on the way back, the captain tells him, especially wine from Gascony they are supposed to pick up. The crew consists only of a few men and a cook, and only two of the men have served on the ship before - the captain and the mate, the only one Jordan knows by his first name because nobody ever calls him anything else but Adam. Then there’s an experienced sailor, Milner, who apparently takes every job available and whom every captain would want to have on his crew, and Lovren, a man that looks like he would fit more on a pirate ship than this vessel, with his wild looks and thick accent, a late finding like Jordan. 

A couple days into the journey, as uneventful as it could be, Jordan finds himself at the helm, looking over the coast they are passing by, the rising sun coloring the white cliffs light pink. He prefers spending the days on the deck, as he’s not yet tired of seeing the world. Lovren and Milner gladly take the night patrols, and spend the days sleeping in their hammocks after having warmed themselves up with too much grog. The captain doesn’t approve of it, but rarely says anything. As long as they reach the port and he gets paid, he leaves the crew to themselves.

“It never stops amazing me,” Jordan hears behind him, and turns around to find Adam leaning over the mast. “The view from the deck. World looks different from the sea.”

“No fog,” Jordan comments, lacking the poetic soul that Adam probably has. “Looks like a clear day ahead.”

Adam smiles, shaking his head. “You grew up by the sea, didn’t you?”

“By a river,” Jordan says. “In a port. My life was quite set before I was born. Not much you could do there - fisherman, sailor or shipbuilder.”

“If your place of birth should determine what you become, I’d be a merchant or a priest,” Adam smirks. “Alas, I lack the wits to be a merchant, and the eloquence to be a priest.” He walks up to Jordan, watching the horizon as they leave the coast behind, heading for the open sea.

“You still have to have certain qualities. The captain dotes on you,” Jordan notes. “Everyone thinks so.”

“He does not!” Adam objects. “He just values my loyalty!”

“Loyalty is for soldiers, not sailors,” Jordan shakes his head. “You can be loyal to a king, whose throne stands on the firm ground. Not to something as fragile as a vessel in the middle of the ocean.”

“What else would you want to be loyal to, than to something that your life depends on?” Adam looks at him.

Jordan shrugs. He doesn’t know loyalty, doesn’t know attachment. He goes from port to port, from ship to ship, from captain to captain. But somehow, he envies Adam, he envies him the way he is anchored to something or someone even in the middle of the ocean, never lost.

They look at the horizon for a long time, and at the end, Jordan feels like he’s starting to see the world through Adam’s eyes.

 

~ ~ ~

 

“Say whatever you want, but I’m not going to content myself with this miserable wage,” Lovren growls.

It’s one of the rare occasion Jordan sits with Lovren and Milner, the three of them having met in an odd hour before sunset.

“And what you want to do, ask the captain for a rise?” Milner smirks. “He’s a scrooge, like all of them.”

Lovren just shakes his head amusedly. “There’s always something we could help ourselves to.”

“What would you want to steal here? Wool? Are you an old lady with a fancy in knitting?” Jordan laughs.

“Don’t be a fool, Hendo,” Lovren, says, his accent thick on the words. “There’s money, I got it out of Adam after he had too much grog.”

“He didn’t have too much, Lovren, just your grog is too much for everyone,” Milner chuckles.

“So you’re telling me the captain is sleeping on gold?” Jordan asks, suddenly interested.

“Yes, I’m telling you,” Lovren nods. “There should be about three thousand… I forgot the currency. But still enough to make us rich even if we share, eh?”

Jordan sips on the grog - no wonder it loosened Adam’s tongue - and nods. “How do you want to do it?” he asks.

Milner gives him an incredulous look, but Lovren’s eyes glint as he realizes he’s found a man like him. “Get rid of the captain. Tonight will be perfect. Look at the sky. One can easily fall overboard in a storm like the one we’re about to sail through.”

Jordan laughs and nods, ignoring Milner’s worried looks. With no witnesses, the plan is perfect.

“And the sea will likely demand payment anyway,” Lovren concludes.

It’s a strange belief, an old one, and Jordan is surprised someone like Lovren knows it and takes it seriously. He doesn’t look like someone who’s ever laid his hand on the Bible, but perhaps he does believe in the sea as some kind of deity. Paying it for safe passage when there’s a sin committed on board of the vessel, making a sacrifice to it as one would to the Pagan gods.

“What about Adam?” Milner asks. “The cook we don’t have to worry about, but…”

“Hendo will take care of him, right?” Lovren smirks. “Us two take on the captain, Hendo will make sure his faithful dog stays on the leash.”

Jordan smirks and nods. It sounds easy. Maybe too easy.

 

~ ~ ~

 

The storms starts right when Lovren predicted it would. Jordan stands at the companion way as Lovren makes his way to the helm, holding what could be a club of some sort. Somehow Lovren’s weapon of choice doesn’t surprise him. Milner, who is at the helm, holding a light for the captain, carefully puts it down and steps aside as Lovren strikes the captain with the club over the head, or the back of his neck, in the darkness Jordan isn’t quite sure. The captain is sent forward by the blow, and he cries out, but Milner and Lovren promptly seize him, one by the head and the other by the heels, and throw him overboard, just as Adam appears at the companion way.

Jordan grabs him from behind and pulls him up the final two steps. It’s not hard, as Adam is momentarily paralyzed by the scene.

“What have you done?” Adam shouts, echoing the fading cries of the captain.

“So what, the sea demands its bloody fare!” Lovren laughs. “Should’ve cut his throat… but we still have a sacrifice available.”

Adam just stares at him, like Lovren is the Devil himself, and when Jordan looks at him against the stormy sky, he is quite ready to believe it as well.

“You can still join us, though,” Lovren says. “Do as you’re told, be true to us, and nothing will happen to you.”

Adam is trashing in Jordan’s hold now, his loyalty unwavering even as he faces his possible murderers.

“You’ll burn in hell,” he shouts at them, as if he wants to be louder than the sea so that God can hear him. “Traitorous bastards, I swear you’ll pay for this!”

Lovren doesn’t look impressed. “Kill ‘im,” he says.

Jordan pulls out his knife, his heart suddenly beating too quickly, as though it’s warning him. He still digs his hand in Adam’s hair and pulls, baring his neck.

“Jordan, please,” Adam whispers, and the blood runs cold in Jordan’s veins.

Nobody on this ship knows him as Jordan. He hasn’t been using this name for years, opting for a different one before each voyage, in every port. He’s almost forgotten it himself.

There’s no way for Adam to know his name, unless…

He’s heard about soulmates, connected souls, but never thought he would be one of them. He’s thought of himself as a lonely, wandering soul, and he’s never truly felt like he belonged anywhere. He thinks back to all the signs, now much clearer. If it was Fate that guided him on this ship, it played a cruel joke on him.

“Do it!” Lovren shouts, tearing him out of his thoughts.

The waves are getting higher, like the sea herself is either outraged, or demanding her payment to let them through. It’s hard to keep his balance at this point. Adam’s eyes are closed and his lips moving, probably in prayer.

He pushes Adam to the railing, presses him against the rough wood and forces him to bend over it. Adam’s body is shaking with sobs, but he’s not begging for his life anymore. Almost like he understands what Jordan wants to do, and thinks it better than the captain’s fate.

Jordan grips the knife tighter. He’s been alone for all his life, he can surely be alone for the rest. It’s better than dying. If he has to pay the bloody fare for it, he will pay. He moves his hand quickly and without thinking. It’s not the first time, after all.

A lightning cuts through the sky like it wants to split the Earth in half, an omen so clear that even a man as godless as Jordan knows that he’s screwed for eternity. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

They overhaul the vessel in the morning, and find a keg full of coins, definitely less than than three thousand. Not enough to make them rich for long. They divide the captain’s clothes among them, too, but none of it is enough to satisfy their hunger.

The drink most of it away when they finally arrive to port, abandoning the ship and its cargo like rats. Jordan does, at least, hoping than drinking himself into oblivion will somehow help him forget about the numbness he feels inside. It doesn’t.

The rest of them don’t fare much better. Jordan doesn’t know which one of them brags about the murders in one of the pubs when the wine loosens their tongues; it might as well have been him, and he doesn’t care.

When the court sentences him to be hanged, he almost smiles.


	2. England, 1460

The guard finds Jordan on the battlements.

“Captain!” he calls, gesturing for Jordan to come down.

Jordan leaves the post, making sure everyone knows what to do. It’s a force of habit. He could trust the men with his life, if he ever trusted anyone.

A group of soldiers is standing by the gate, which is closing again, the chains rustling and wood screeching. The sound of safety.

“Caught a messenger on the borders of the shire, Captain,” one soldier says, pride seeping from his voice. “And managed to confiscate this.”

He hands Jordan a scroll, but Jordan couldn’t be interested less in whatever is written on it.

The messenger’s clothes are torn in places and blood is dripping down the side of his face, but Jordan still recognizes him immediately. It’s the strange feeling of knowing that comes from deep within him, despite his reason telling him he’s never seen the man in his life. Not in _this_ life, definitely.

There’s the white rose of York on his coat. And Jordan’s Lancaster red suddenly has thorns that rip his heart into pieces.

Jordan looks at the scroll, if only to hide whatever emotion may be showing in his face. The seal has been broken, and at any other time, he would inquire about who thought themselves important enough to do so, but he couldn’t care less now. He skims the lines with a quick look, and knows immediately that they are in trouble. He knows a coded message when he sees one.

“We suspected it could contain information about the enemy’s positions,” says the soldier who handed it to him.

“It probably does,” Jordan nods, finally trusting his voice enough. “But it won’t tell us much, unless we decipher the code it’s written in.”

“Luckily, we have someone to ask,” one of the guards grins.

“In your dreams, you red arsed dog!” the messenger spits.

Jordan has to jump between him and the guard, because he won’t deal with his lord’s anger after he comes back and finds out the only chance for them to decode the message was killed by a hotheaded guard in front of Jordan’s very eyes.

“Take him to the tower,” he says.

_Tower is safer than the dungeons_ , he tells himself, then calls himself stupid. As if any place in the castle is safe for any of their enemy’s men.

As if he could protect him from anything.

As if he should do that.

He still has the servants bring hot water and clean linen, some spiced wine and food. Nobody thinks it strange; after all, he has to keep the messenger alive until his lord returns to the castle.

Only the messenger thinks it strange, or rather suspicious.

“Don’t you think I’ll reveal my secrets to you if you’re nice to me,” he growls when Jordan orders the servants to leave the tower, pointedly ignoring the food and wine.

“I wouldn’t dare to think that, Adam,” Jordan says, the name dripping from his lips naturally.

Now for the first time, the man looks scared. “How do you know my name?” he asks.

“Maybe I’ve heard it somewhere?” Jordan offers. He doesn’t have a better explanation anyway.

“No. No, you couldn’t have,” Adam says, wrapping his arms around him protectively, like he wants to shield himself from what he must think is some sorcery. “Nobody’s called me by my Christian name since I was a child. Nobody knows, nobody’s ever known but me and my mother, who is long dead.”

“Maybe you’ll remember where I know your name from,” Jordan shrugs. “You also know mine.”

He nods towards the food and wine, and closes the door behind him.

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

He spends all night looking at the message, like looking at it long enough could help him break the code. It tells him nothing, of course. He doesn’t even know how long the message will be valid, and if it will be valid at all if it stays undelivered. The sooner they know, however, the better.

If only he knew how to untwist Adam’s tongue.

When the sun rises, he walks up the stairs and unlocks the door.

Adam is up; if he even slept, it wasn’t a fitful sleep, judging from the dark shadows under his eyes. The blood is gone from his face, only the cut remains, and he’s taken off the torn coat. In the linen shirt, with the cold winter sun creating a halo over his head, he looks like an angel bruised in the fall from Heaven.

“Have you remembered?” Jordan asks.

“You are Jordan,” Adam says, a hint of question in his voice as he still has trouble believing it’s possible.

“Yes.”

“We met… we were…” Adam takes a step towards him. “That’s impossible.”

“It’s not,” Jordan says. He knows the images that are playing in Adam’s mind. They are the same as his. Memories of the past life. They might share more, some of them so distant the imprints are gone from their minds. But even the last one is enough.

“If you are Jordan, this will not end well for me,” Adam gives him a small smile, like he’s teasing him with the memories he now knows are Jordan’s as well as his.

Jordan suddenly finds it hard to swallow. “All you have to do is give us the code,” he says.

Adam laughs, and Jordan wonders if he had seen him laugh in their previous life. If he did, the memory didn’t make it to this existence of his. “If I reveal the code to you, it will be my side who will kill me,” he says and takes another step, until his chest is pressed to Jordan’s. “Either way, it’s as if I’m already dead.”

Jordan looks down at him, and there’s the overwhelming feeling of familiarity, like he’s known Adam for hundreds of years, despite them only meeting for a couple days in the last life, despite him only seeing him yesterday in this one.

“Why does Fate hate us?” Adam asks.

Jordan doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t really know what to say. He only has a strong feeling that it’s his fault.

 

~ ~ ~

 

“Captain!” the guard says, apologizing with a gesture for interrupting Jordan’s supper. “Lord Clifford is on his way to the castle.”

Jordan nods, heart beating madly in his chest, and gives a command to prepare for the Lord’s arrival, as if his men don’t know what to do without him. As soon as the guard leaves, he grabs the keys and runs up the stairs.

Adam is looking out of the window, and only turns to him when Jordan closes the door. He must see the torches in the darkness, approaching the gate.

“Is that your lord?” he asks.

Jordan nods, approaching him carefully. “They will want you to reveal the code to them,” he says.

When did _us_ become _they_?

Adam shakes his head. “I can’t.”

“They’ll torture you if you don’t.”

Adam shrugs, fingers toying with the frayed hem of his shirt. Jordan grabs his wrist and pulls his hand towards him. With nothing to play with, his fingers are shaking. Jordan suddenly wants to hold him and tell him nothing bad will happen to him, but he’s such a bad liar Adam wouldn’t believe him anyway.

“I can make it quick,” he hears himself say instead.

Adam isn’t scared as much as he should be. It’s more like he relaxes a bit after Jordan says it. Without a doubt, he had been imagining his death before, and Jordan’s offer seems like the best there is.

“You will not want me to reveal the secret in exchange for it, will you?” he asks.

Jordan shakes his head. He should want it, for this secret might as well be the weight that will finally balance the scales towards the Lancaster banners. But this is not a deal.

“Good,” Adam smiles. “Because I don’t know it anyway.”

Jordan’s jaw drops. “What?”

“If you want your secret to be safe, don’t reveal it to the messenger,” Adam says. “The paper will hold its tongue, the man might not.”

He makes a step towards Jordan, and Jordan almost backs away. It’s like this changes everything, the knowledge that he’s about to do this again, to kill another part of Adam’s soul, for nothing.

“How?” Adam asks, looking up into Jordan’s eyes.

“How?” Jordan rasps, his hand finding its way into Adam’s hair without him really wanting it to.

“How are you going to kill me?” Adam asks, fingers tracing the red rose on Jordan’s coat. “Last time you cut my throat, is that right?”

Jordan feels his lips tremble. “Yes.” He’s been trying to erase this image all his life, but it was lodged deeper than any other memory.

“If you do it now, it will be clear that you killed me,” Adam muses. “And they will kill _you_ for it.”

Jordan wants to say that he doesn’t care. That his life will be worth nothing anyway. But he knows that he has to live it out, only then he will get to meet Adam in the next, and it’s not his time to go now.

“I don’t want to do this,” he whispers.

“We will meet again, won’t we?” Adam smiles, caressing his face and looking so goddamn _calm._

Jordan nods. They will, he just doesn’t know when and where. It could take fifty years as well as three hundred or a thousand, and they could be anything, anywhere. And Adam will remember him a little less.

“Turn around,” he says.

Adam nods, but gives Jordan one last look, like he wants to memorize his face a bit better. Then he turns his back to Jordan, guessing his intentions.

Jordan flexes his fingers at his sides, feeling his heart beating madly in his chest, in its last effort to stop him. Then he lets his hands fly up and snaps Adam’s neck.

As he pushes his body out of the window and watches it fall on the rocks surrounding the castle, he feels nothing at all. He knows it’s not going to change, not in this life anyway. He’s going to take a wife and not love her, have children and not love them; he’s going to pretend that he does, though, for they will not be at fault. He’s going to live his life waiting for Death to take him, like he did before, and hope for Fate to take pity on them in the next life.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is <3.


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